Intel Receives SuperSpeed USB 3.0 Certification
Today, USB-IF announced that the upcoming Intel 7 Series Chipset and Intel C216 Chipset Family has achieved SuperSpeed USB Certification.
As previously discussed in April, Intel has officially received SuperSpeed USB Certification for its upcoming Intel 7 Series Chipset Family for client PCs and Intel C216 Chipset for servers from the USB Implementers Forum. These chipsets will provide up to 4 integrated USB 3.0 ports. USB 3.0 support will enable faster transfer rates for consumers connecting devices to their PC, with compatible USB 3.0 devices.
“SuperSpeed USB certification of our Intel 7 Series Chipset and Intel C216 Chipset Family helps ensure interoperability and backward compatibility within the broad USB ecosystem,” said Ahmad Zaidi, General Manager, Intel Corporation Chipset and SoC IP Group. “The Intel 7 Series Chipset and Intel C216 Chipset Family offers OEMs and consumers many exciting features, and Intel is excited to integrate SuperSpeed USB technology into our upcoming chipsets.”
In related news, the USB-IF also revealed a new standard that is capable of carrying powered audio and video.

TB is coming along slower than predicted. Which is hardly a surprise.
Its not the same as USB, quite different - both standards have their pros and cons. TB uses a daisy chain system, hence - you get only 1 TB port, vs 3~7 USB ports.
They are ..but ironically USB is part their baby too!..
Intel made Lightpeak, which used photonics to transfer data. Intel said they had to transition to copper (renames it Thunderbolt) because the costs were still prohibitive.
USB also daisy-chains.
It's hard to say i it's a downgrade because they are two separate connections serving different areas.
My opinion is that Intel did take way too long for USB 3, not sure why they did, but the first USB3 products out were at the end of 2009... and they had the specs back in 2008. 3 Years and we are finally seeing something from Intel.
Yes but there almost everything is USB and that is not going to change soon. Kind of like MP3 or .jpg
LOL, that was a good movie.
So... where's Thunderbolt/Light Peak? Aside from Apple (which isn't exactly high-performance technology) and the Sony Vaio Z, I haven't seen it anywhere. Because it isn't anywhere.
I can't argue that USB 3.0 is still not fast enough (though that's more the fault of drivers and hardware on the other end and would be just as slow with Thunderbolt in the case of external drives).
Though USB 3.0 also forces you to use PCI-E lanes, just like Lightpeak does, though it only eats up one per port while Light Peak eats up 4. Intel's mainstream chipsets have a real problem with this (I remember Gigabyte's old 1155 boards couldn't provide enough bandwidth for USB 3.0 and SATA 6GB/s at the same time) though their high-end stuff doesn't.
Lightpeak's also really expensive. Cables for them cost quite a bit (I'll guess that their cost to make's about 15 bucks since Apple sells them for 50) not to mention the circuitry inside the device that has to be redesigned for that protocol (since it is, in essence, a PCI-Express device in itself and would have to include a SATA controller itself if it was any sort of drive (your micro SD card reader just got a lot bigger).